Everybody's Mutha

My daughter's friends call me "Mom" and it's always interesting in a Rainbow Coalition sort of way to be out doing whatever when the Black BFF and the Asian boyfriend all converge upon me at the same time and call me "Mom", especially when they are both studying a new language and call me "Mom" in something other than English, like "Mutter" or "Moder", or "Madre".

Ah, family...

It's fun to confuse passers-by.

Sweet as it is to generate that much good will in a teenager, I really need to start hanging out with people my own age--I am DEFINITELY not the type of parent who tries to install themselves into the lives of the cool crowd, although it did warm my heart today, to hear two 16 year old boys very excitedly quoting lines from Wayne's World and Animal House.  My daughter had not seen either movie, and since they are classics and I actually know something about them, I didn't feel like a jerk entering that conversation to agree that she should make the time.

Although...maybe it would be better to just tell her that I've never watched either of those movies end-to-end, either.

Never mind the fact that I recognized a fair portion of the bands that they were going to see at Warped Tour, where I was driving them.  Never mind that.  I'm forty-four f*cking years old, and there is virtually nothing cool about peeling off band names and song titles when you're 44, unless someone is paying you to do that.

Anyway...

It becomes a matter of trying to find people to whom you are still relevant--not for the purposes of talking about old movies or music, but, to have a mature appreciation of new ones.  Like, "Wow, that guy is a really talented musician," not, "Wow, that singer has cute hair."

Sure, there will be those cross-over moments.  I refuse to give up liking Green Day just because my kid likes Green Day.  F*ck that.  I liked them first.  I'm never going to stop liking pizza, either.  I liked that first, too.  And is it really my job to educate the children on all that ways Mike Myers was funny before Shrek?  I don't think it is.

Maybe I'm everybody's Mom because I help all the teenagers I know indulge in all of the loud music/crap food I can force-feed them.  

On second thought--that's more of a grandmother thing--spoil them, then send them home.  Forget I ever said that.

In a couple of years, there will be no teenagers living here, and probably none visiting.  I'll be unable to use them as an excuse for liking music made by people younger than me, or the occasional so-called "edgy" movie or television show.  Hopefully, by then, I will have found someone else with the same problem, and we can compare notes.